


Bloodbeetles: Symbiote, Not Parasite

by Elfwreck



Category: Codex Seraphinianus - Luigi Serafini
Genre: Alien Biology, Essays, Gen, Gift Fic, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elfwreck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bloodbeetle tree, and the symbiotic bloodbeetles, have a fascinating biological arrangement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloodbeetles: Symbiote, Not Parasite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [estelendur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelendur/gifts).



> Estelundar, I am so thrilled that you requested this! I love the Codex, love ~~inflicting it on~~ sharing it with friends. I was delighted to have this opportunity; I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Beta'd by the most excellent [M].

**Bloodbeetles: Symbiote, Not Parasite**

The bloodbeetle tree, and the symbiotic bloodbeetles, have a fascinating biological arrangement. The trees grow on harsh, barren coastal cliffs; the ground is packed with dense minerals as almost everything else has been washed away by the ocean. The trees provide a home and some minerals for the b'beetle eggs and larvae, and the beetles provide protection and nutrients for the trees. The trees and their beetles are the also inspiration for many artistic works. However, not many products are based off the bloodbeetle trees; they remain mostly a picturesque part of the landscape.

In spring, the bloodbeetle trees sprout hard white cyst-rings on the twig-ends of their branches. The knots of sap and minerals, speckled with coal and iron drawn from the mountainous terrain, add weight to the branches, allowing them to be pulled around by the sea winds more than the spindly trees otherwise would; this maximizes the use of the surface area of the leaves, and brings in extra nutrients from the sea spray.[1] The sap is hard, but is pocked in ways that catch the miniscule green threadlike eggs of the bloodbeetles which are carried in the sea spray. The cysts absorb salt and chlorophyll, filtering the seawater to send the water to the branches and leaving the salts and other minerals for the beetles. As the iron in the cysts oxidizes, the rings turn red; as the beetle larvae grow, they absorb the harder elements into their tiny exoskeletons, leaving the cysts soft and sticky—where they trap insects that would feed on the tree, which are instead eaten by the bloodbeetles, whose wastes nourish the trees. When the beetles have reached full size, they crawl out of the now-red soft goo, and fly off to find mates in the sand and let their eggs float out to sea to be coated in green planktifibers and be carried by the spray to a new batch of bloodbeetle trees. 

The three colors and textures of the tree cysts—white and hard, green and fuzzy, red and gooey—have been the topic of countless poems celebrating the cycles of life and diversity of nature.[2] Because of the trees' survival in very harsh climes, they're often used as a metaphor for endurance of hardships, they are the origins of the phrase "sturdy as a beetle-tree," which means someone who makes the best of his available resources but refuses to budge on matters of principle. A "greenfuzz kitchen" is one where a lot of people bring common, simple ingredients to cook fancy foods.

Few commercial uses have been found for bloodbeetle cysts. Although they are weatherproof and laden with heavy elements and thus should be useful for many kinds of protective coating, the pheromones within them make them very attractive to many kinds of insect. The most famous commercial project involving tree-cysts was Deesse-3G's Car Carapace™[3], a spray-on foam that quickly hardened, intended to protect vehicles left unattended for at least a season and sometimes for several years, after which time a simple solvent would make it melt away; the resulting liquid was entirely biodegradable and could safely be washed into the street. While it worked very well in the laboratory and in some closed garages, customers who used it on vehicles outdoors generally came back from their vacations to find their vehicles covered in bugs, often large wasps that had eaten all the other, smaller bugs first attracted by the cysts. The bugs had usually burrowed into every part of the vehicle not covered by the cysts and destroyed the tires and sometimes any tools or furniture nearby. Getting rid of the bugs and recovering the vehicle usually required liberal application of flames, which created long streamers of thick rainbow smoke. Because of this, there has been some speculate that forest fires that reach the cliffs are the origin of the rainbow roads.[4]

The bloodbeetle trees are beautiful and an enduring symbol of the ability of life to adapt to all kinds of circumstances. They also show that not everything in nature is suited for corporate exploitation.

REFERENTS

[1] Ipeep, G.P.G. (1&42a). _Trees of the Glassic Coastlands_. Glassica Region: Silverbooks.

[2] Festov, Amallia. (1&54a). _Bloodbeetle poetry and popular literature_. [Brochure]. Yarnish Region: Author.

[3] Deesse-3G. (n.d.). _Car Carapace™: Long-Term Storage Methods_. Retrieved 1 &54c from http://www.deesse-3g.com/whitepapers/Car_Carapace_Long_Term_Storage_Methods.pdf

[4] Nakedchest. (1&51c). More Than a Curvy Hat: the Real Truths About Rainbows. _Curvy Hats and Balloons_ Retrieved 1 &54c from www.curvyhatsandballoons.com/blog/morethan.htm

* * *

_I am amazed at the amount of time and effort you put into avoiding assignments while giving the appearance of completion; if you put half that much effort into just completing them, you probably would have graduated two years ago with your agemates._

_While this report does indeed fill four pages, that's only because you used Courien Neb and double-spaced it with wide margins, and at that, it barely touches the fourth page before the reference. Had you used the recommended settings of Tives Neb Orwen, two thumbs' margins all around and half-again spaced, it would be two pages, which is quite reasonable since it's almost half the suggested length. You did manage all four references, but only by including a flyer for your siblet's lecture series and a rant from a seditionist blog. Since the other two sources are a children's picture-book and a corporate whitepaper, I can't consider those qualify as "careful research drawing from peer-reviewed sources," although they are probably factually correct._

_Your subtle attempts to work in political commentary have failed. At least, the subtlety has failed, and the attempt to connect the Cliffside Region's official tree to ribbon politics is entirely unsupported. A man who won't even use his fishname speculating about evolutionary history is hardly a reliable source for political information, much less scientific._

_Which brings me back to the purpose of this assignment, which was "Planimal pairings in their ecospheres." From the grading rubric:_

**Describe Planimal** – 3/5 points – basics covered, but in detail suitable for primentary students.  
 **Describe Environment** – 2/5 points – lacking details other than region; does not mention other flora or fauna.  
 **Describe Lifecycle** – 4/5 points – missed breeding habits entirely; otherwise covered the essentials.  
 **Ecospheric Impact** – 1/5 points – 1 for linguistic influence, 1 for commercial. Lacked any mention of relationals to other nonsentients.  
 **4 scientific references** – 1/5 points – the Silverbook is at least based on well-researched science, and the rest were mostly correctly formatted.  
 **Length** – 1/5 points – Less than half the assigned length. While this could be mitigated by alternative media such as images or audial attachments, you provided neither.

**TOTAL: 11/30**  
 **FAIL**

_I suspect you now wish your motherpair had sent you to a public academy with simple grading and no reports._


End file.
